Keaf turned to see Jarmon step from shadow into moonlight. “Templar?”
“You’ve been busy,” Jarmon said. “News of a great new lord has traveled as far as the Temple of Dawn.” His sword rang as he drew it from its sheath.
“I–I’m sorry,” Keaf stammered. He stepped back as the servant girl returned with the Sword still in its scabbard. She knelt at Keaf’s feet and stood the blade against him.
“Begone, girl,” Jarmon said.
She looked at Keaf, and he nodded her away. After she’d gone back inside, he reached for the Sword’s hilt.
“Don’t,” Jarmon said. His voice was tight with warning, and a stone-hard look glinted in his eyes.
Keaf pulled his hand back. “I didn’t know it was magic. Truly, I only thought to sell it for a few gold pieces.”
“I doubt you’d get that for it,” Jarmon said. “A kingdom, an empire, maybe the whole world, but not a few gold pieces.”
“I’m sorry,” Keaf said, and he’d never felt any emotion stronger in his life. “I only wanted to make them like me.”
Jarmon stepped forward and wrapped a mailed fist around the Sword’s scabbard as he touched the point of his weapon against Keaf’s chest. “And I paid you to do a job. I trusted you.”
The words cut twice, like the twin edges of the Sword. Jarmon had expected trust, but he hadn’t shown it himself. And Keaf had broken the trust that he’d accepted. He believed in trust and integrity, things that his father had taught him to value, and he’d looked upon Jarmon as a noble man. The truth was, they’d both failed. “You didn’t trust me at all,” he said, letting his shame translate into anger at the Templar. “Otherwise, you would have told me about the Sword. You tricked me into burying it.”
Jarmon drew back his sword, and the look in his eyes softened. Before he could answer, an arrow whizzed past Keaf’s head and pierced the heavy leather padding at the Templar’s shoulder. The impact knocked Jarmon back, and the Sword fell at his feet. Keaf turned to look for the bowman, and Kaye charged out of the darkness with another arrow nocked.
“Get back, Keaf,” he shouted. “I’ll defend you.”
Jarmon reached to tear the arrow free and growled deep in his throat with the pain. Keaf sprang for the Sword, but Jarmon’s boot caught him in the chest and sent him sprawling to the side. Kaye’s next arrow shot past Jarmon’s head and hit the wall of the inn with a dull thump.
The Templar didn’t wait for a third arrow. He wrapped both hands around his own sword and advanced to attack. Kaye pulled out his hunting knife and planted his feet, apparently willing to die for Keaf.
Keaf’s chest ached from the kick, but he managed to roll to his feet. “Stop!” he shouted, but only one man there was bound to him.
Kaye froze, torn between defending Keaf and obeying him, and Jarmon struck. His sword slashed across Kaye’s left hand and knocked the knife away with a trailing spray of blood. Kaye fell back clutching his wounded hand as Jarmon stepped over the Sword to deliver another blow. Keaf had only an instant to react, and he lunged.
He hit the Templar in the knees and knocked him off-balance. Jarmon stumbled a half step sideways and his blow missed Kaye’s head by the barest margin. Keaf grabbed for the Sword. Before he could unsheathe it, Jarmon twisted, off-balance, and swung his blade. The blow tore the scabbard from Keaf’s hands and sent it cartwheeling upward. The Mindsword slipped from its sheath. Moonlight caught the spinning blade, and it seemed to hang in the air for an eternity.
The sound of the roaring crowd echoed off the black outline of the mountains. At the edge of the darkness, Dellawynn appeared with a gash in her leg and her small sword badly notched. Dripping blood, Kaye reached for his knife, and Jarmon’s mailed hand reached for Keaf’s neck.
As the Sword reached the top of its arc and began to fall, Keaf saw the fight that would ensue, saw that it would end in death. And he saw the Sword gleaming with its strange designs written for gods and not for men. Not for men.
He pushed away from Jarmon and sprang toward the Sword. The Templar snagged him by the foot to stop him, but Keaf’s right hand reached far enough. Far enough for the tip of the blade to slice through flesh and bone and pin his palm to the hard ground.
He shrieked with pain and curled around his skewered hand as Jarmon and Kaye regained their feet. Jarmon took a step toward Keaf, but he stopped as Dellawynn raised her weapon.
“Leave him alone,” she warned.
“He’s hurt!” Jarmon snapped as he backed away. “That cursed blade.”
“It’s that blade that you were going to kill him over,” Kaye said. He held his wounded hand inside his belt and circled to trap Jarmon between himself and Dellawynn. His eyes strayed to Keaf, but as much as he wanted to help, he had first to defend his master.
Keaf struggled to his knees, each movement an agony as his impaled hand flexed, and he curled his fingers around the hilt of the Sword.
“I must help him,” Jarmon said. As he dropped his guard, Dellawynn moved to strike.
“No!” Keaf cried as he yanked upward. His shout froze Dellawynn and Kaye, but not Jarmon. The Templar threw his weapon down and rushed to Keaf’s side as the Sword came free. Keaf started to collapse, but Jarmon’s strong arm caught him.
“My liege!” Jarmon cried as he pulled off his glove and tore out the cloth lining. “I have been a fool!” He reached for Keaf’s wounded hand and pressed the cloth against the flow of blood. Another wave of pain made Keaf nearly faint.
Kaye and Dellawynn recovered from their shock and leapt to help. Kaye stripped off his woolen vest to drape over Keaf’s shoulders, and Dellawynn added her scarf to the temporary bandage.
“I’ll get help,” Dellawynn said. She started toward the inn, but Kaye stopped her.
“This way,” he said, motioning down the main street. “Lara is the village midwife. She knows medicines.”
As they hurried off, Jarmon slipped out of his heavy coat, exposing the bloodstain at his shoulder. He draped the wrap over Keaf, and its lingering warmth eased a little of Keaf’s misery. Tears welled in his eyes, and he turned away from the Templar.
Nothing had turned out right with the Sword of Fealty. Three people were hurt, and Keaf felt more alone than ever before. If he kept the Sword, he wouldn’t be able to trust anyone not under its power, and he could never afford friendship. His one dream would remain forever out of reach.
He turned to face Jarmon. “Why did you do this to me?”
Jarmon bowed his head in shame. “I was blind to your greatness, Master Keaf. I hope you can forgive me.”
“But this,” Keaf said, lifting the Sword with his good hand. “What about this?”
“In my heart,” Jarmon said as he tapped his fist on his chest, “I believe it is a bad thing. You would be better off without it. Then people could see your true noble nature without magical deceit.”
Keaf shook his head. Jarmon was as spellbound as the rest, but there was a truth in his words that the Templar could not see. The truth was that the Sword enslaved its owner as surely as it enchanted those around him. “For my own good.”
“Yes,” Jarmon said. “I have seen what it does to those who wield it.”
“Servant Wend?”
“Servant Wend, Lord March. He was an unfortunate man, ordinary where you are extraordinary, and that magic blade brought him to ruin.”
Keaf felt a shiver, not from the cold. Lord March! His land holdings were well known even in Palmora, and he conferred with kings and emperors. Such a man might have been able to rule the world with the Mindsword in his hands. Yet he now lay in an unmarked grave.
“Bury it before it harms you,” Jarmon pleaded. “Bury it demon’s deep where no one will dig.”
Keaf heard footsteps on the road, and he forced himself to sit up straight. “Please, go home,” he said quietly to Jarmon. “I release you from any service to me.”
Out of the darkness, Dellawynn, Kaye, and old Lara arrived with clean cloths and a doctor’s satchel. Kaye’s hand had been bandaged, but Dellawynn’s leg still seeped blood.